Page 4 - TORCH Magazine Issue#5

many Christians celebrate Christmas. Let’s take celebrations in 2015 as an example:
In the lead-up to Christmas last year, the PA asked the municipality of Bethlehem not to set o reworks and limit festive lights and decorations. Christians were apparently discouraged to celebrate while “Palestinians were being killed” by Israelis – when in fact this was at the height of last year’s Palestinian stabbing attacks against Israelis. But the real reason, it turned out,
On Christmas Day itself, Muslim Palestinians hurled stones at the car
of Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, as he travelled to Bethlehem. Even before this attack, Palestinian Muslims set re to a Christmas tree in the village of Al-Zababdeh. Further to this, Palestinian protesters were disguising themselves
in Santa Claus costumes and throwing stones at Israeli soldiers while reportedly shouting “Allahu Akbar”. The Western media, however, failed to associate these
was due to threats by Islamic extremists to target Christians and their holy sites. Reports say that Palestinian security forces arrested 16 men a liated with Islamic State or other jihadi groups, during the festive period.
actions in any way to Islamic radicalism. Christians across the Middle East are being persecuted to great extremes,
yet when it comes to the Palestinian Territories it continues to follow the narrative that Israel alone is only to blame for the predicament of Christians living there.
Blaming Israel is sadly endemic not only in our media but in many churches in the West. In fact there is an entire movement among pro-Palestinian Christians that
has joined hands with Islam for the purpose of delegitimising, isolating and destroying Israel with a seditious version of Replacement Theology. Also known as Palestinian Liberation Theology, the rise
of this teaching perpetuates the narrative that Jesus was not a Jew, but a Palestinian and that Israel has no historical or theological right to exist. This absurd assertion is made despite the fact that
the Bible identi es Jesus as a Jew, the son of a Jewish mother, who, as a Jew, lived
in Judea and celebrated Jewish festivals annually in Jerusalem. The Roman Empire only changed the name of “Judea” to “Palestina” one hundred years after Jesus’s death.
4
CUFI.ORG.UK
Blaming Israel is sadly endemic not only in our media but in many churches in the West.